Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA)
The move by the Philadelphia School Reform Commission—an instrument of state control over the city's schools, with a majority of board members appointed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett—to cut health care for teachers and suspend their contract could further hurt the city's desperately underfunded, suffering schools, Daniel Denvir writes. Philadelphia teachers were paid 19 percent less than teachers in neighboring suburbs even before the Philadelphia teachers were hit with a pay freeze, but at least their health care was paid for. Now it's not.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a 2012 study by Stanford University's Center for Education Policy Analysis found "that a differential salary increase can improve a school district's attractiveness within the local teacher labor market and increase both the size and quality of the teacher applicant pool."
Ken Futernick, a reform critic and professor emeritus of education at California State University, Sacramento, predicts the move to "save money will generate huge costs of its own. A cut in teachers' benefits and an escalation of dysfunction in the district will lead to increased teacher attrition. The cost to recruit and train replacements, if qualified ones can be found, range from $20,000 to $30,000 per teacher. But that does not account for the time principals must take to screen, interview and train candidates when they could be supporting classroom instruction. Perhaps the greatest cost of increased teacher churn is the harm it will do to student learning."
Low pay, tough working conditions, ballooning class size, and the thousands of dollars teachers spend on school supplies each year contribute to high teacher turnover in Philadelphia schools, and high teacher turnover isn't good for student learning. And Corbett's education funding cuts have made the situation incalculably worse, with thousands fewer teachers and school staff now than when Corbett took office.
Tom Corbett has to go. Please chip in $3 to help Tom Wolf send Corbett packing.
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Continue reading below the fold for more of the week's education and labor news.
A fair day's wage
- The factory is in the Dominican Republic, but the clothes are sold here, and the effort to prove that doing the right thing can succeed is worth learning about:
The laborers inside make more than three times the country's minimum wage. Workplace safety standards are high, and the plant is monitored regularly by an independent labor-rights group with unfettered access. The workers are making clothes for Alta Gracia, a collegiate-apparel brand trying to prove that garment factories don't have to force laborers to work endless hours in sweatshop conditions for rock-bottom wages. The brand can still make a profit even if it pays workers a living wage -- that's the theory, anyway.
For years, apparel companies have hopscotched the world in a perpetual quest to chase cheap labor and keep costs down. Conventional wisdom would assume Alta Gracia is doomed to be crushed by cheaper competition. But four years after its inception, Alta Gracia's business is "proving to be viable," according to a new report from researchers at Georgetown University.
- Behind Bank of America's terrible customer service—and why workers are organizing.
- Union workers, solar power, and Las Vegas is pretty much a recipe for me being enthusiastic:
- When Gannett laid off 70 USA Today staffers, the week of severance pay it gave them for each year of service wasn't what you might think: It includes their unemployment insurance and will be cut off if they find work.
- Station Casinos continues to be horrible to its workers.
- Way to go (in the sarcastic sense), Twin Falls, Idaho.
- Ugh, the Supreme Court:
Workers who fill customer orders for Internet retailer Amazon might be out of luck in their quest to be paid for time they spend going through security checkpoints each day.
Several Supreme Court justices expressed doubts Wednesday during arguments over whether federal law entitles workers to compensation for security measures to prevent employee theft.
We're talking about 25 minutes at a time workers spend waiting in line. That's a real chunk of your life, and these workers are paid very little. Also ugh, the Obama administration:
The Obama administration is siding with the company. Justice Department attorney Curtis Gannon argued that the security screenings were not "integral and indispensable to the workers' jobs. He cited a 1947 Labor Department opinion letter that makes no distinction between searches for general security and those to prevent theft, finding neither requires pay.
By the way, the Obama administration's position on this is because the federal government does the same thing.
- Hamilton Nolan cuts to the chase on that case.
- Further tales of awful bankruptcy courts.
Education